Pesticides And Toxins

My local vegetable vendor sells ordinary lemons packed in plastic bags. It got me thinking if this is a sign of improving standards of food safety and hygiene. After all if we go to any supermarket in the rich and food-processed world, we will find food neatly packed so that there is no contamination through human hands. Then there is the army of food inspectors, who check everything from the processing plant to the supplies in restaurants.

Today, I want to tell you a true story of extraordinary courage. The past week, I was in Kasaragod, a district in Kerala, splendid in beauty and with abundant natural resources, but destroyed by the toxic chemical, endosulfan. The pesticide was aerially sprayed over cashew plantations, for some 20 years, in complete disregard of the fact that there is no demarcation between plantations and human habitation in this area. It is also a high rainfall region and so, the sprayed pesticide leached into the ground and flowed downstream.

We, the Participants of the National Workshop, that assembled under the Chairmanship of Sri P Karunakaran, MP and that was inaugurated by the Hon'ble Chief Minister of the Kerala State, Sri Oommen Chandy and consisted of the People's representatives and leaders, activists and members of social, cultural, health and environmental organisations, experts in various fields, the victims and survivors of the endosulfan induced tragedy, the District administration and

KERALA has started disposing of expired stocks of endosulfan. A task force, chaired by deputy collector of Kasaragod district, started Operation Blossom Spring at a Plantation Corporation of Kerala (PCK) godown in Kasaragod on June 17

Twenty-eight years after the lethal gas leak at Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, the 350 tonnes of toxic waste lying at the defunct factory is likely to be airlifted to Germany for safe disposal. The disposal process, however, will start only after India’s Hazardous Waste (Management, Handling and Transboundary Movement) Rules of 2008, which forbid export and import of hazardous waste, are amended.Read more

Modern houses are full of harmful chemicals. One of them is lead, present in paints. Though several countries have banned the use of this substance India is yet to do so, which is why paint makers use them. Inhaling lead dust while performing mundane chores like opening or closing windows is the most common source of lead poisoning. The human body is not designed to process lead. Young children are particularly vulnerable to lead as it can damage the central nervous system and the brain.